Wednesday, August 15, 2007
"The nonpartisan Cook Political Report lists 14 women among the 75 most vulnerable House members, including eight women who won office with less than 51% of the vote in 2006. And although women hold a quarter of all seats in state legislatures, "we've hit a plateau," says Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics, a public-policy institute at New Jersey's Rutgers University. The bottom line: While women will cast about 53% of the votes in November 2008, based on the past two presidential elections, their share of elective offices seems to have leveled off at about one in six at the federal level, and one in four in the state capitals."